Blood on the Line

pose. ‘I don’t have much to call my own but I do have moral standards. I used to think that I’d instilled them in you.’

Irene was blisteringly honest. ‘What good are moral standards when your father drags you from a decent life in a proper home into a kind of hell? What use are they when you’re a mere servant and your master starts to molest you? Do you know what it’s like to be at the mercy of lecherous old men?’ she demanded. ‘Do you know what it’s like to be treated like an unpaid prostitute? That’s what you did to me. That’s the sort of father you were.’

Adnam was hurt. ‘I did my best for you, Irene.’

‘The only person you ever thought about was yourself.’

‘It was your mother,’ he whimpered. ‘When she died, I lost my way. One thing led to another. It wasn’t my fault, Irene.’

‘You turned me into someone else’s slave and I’ll never forgive you for that. I had two choices,’ said Irene, temper colouring her cheeks. ‘I could either submit or I could fight back. I could either let my employers use my body whenever they wished or I could steal what I wanted from them and run away.’

‘So you turned into a thief.’

‘It was the only way I could survive, Father.’

His eyes began to water and another coughing fit seized him. When the pain finally eased, he looked at her with a disgust laced heavily with curiosity.

‘When will you go?’ he asked.

‘At the end of the week.’

‘Where will you sail from?’

‘Liverpool.’

‘Who are you travelling with? Is it that man, Oxley?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, irritably. ‘The point is that I’m going out of your life for ever. I’d hoped we could have a proper farewell.’

‘Ha!’

‘You’re still my father. I came here to give you some money.’

Adnam’s expression slowly changed. The look of contempt in his eyes was eventually replaced by a glint of self-interest. He despised what she’d done and was glad that she was going far away from him, but he was too wretched to be able to refuse the offer of money, even from such a tainted source. After wrestling with his conscience for a while, he eventually got the better of it.

‘How much money?’ he asked.

Inspector Zachary Boone gave each of them a warm handshake. He had been warned by telegraph that Colbeck and Leeming would be coming to Manchester again and the message had contained a request for him. It had asked that Silas Adnam be brought to the police station for questioning. Boone had bad news for the visitors.

‘He’s not there, I’m afraid,’ he said.

‘Did your officers go to his lodging?’ asked Colbeck.

‘They did, Robert. They talked to everyone else in the house, to his neighbours and to the landlord of the pub where Adnam is well known. Nobody has any idea where he is. Or if they do,’ added Boone, corrugating his brow, ‘they’re not telling us. We don’t get much help from people in Deansgate. They think policemen are vermin.’

‘We have people like that in London,’ said Leeming. ‘They’d sooner die than be seen giving assistance to the police. We’re the enemy to them.’

‘There’s one possibility,’ suggested Colbeck. ‘Adnam is a very sick man. Since the time I was last here, he may even have died.’

‘I considered that,’ said Boone, ‘so I told my men to check on the local undertakers. None of them had been called to collect the body of Silas Adnam. He’s still alive.’

‘Then where is he? The fellow can’t have left Manchester. He’d have no money to do so. Unless …’

‘What are you thinking, Robert?’

‘His daughter got to him before your men did.’

Boone’s office was more cluttered than ever. Files had now been stacked on the floor and the desk was invisible beneath a blizzard of paperwork. He presided over the general anarchy with the confidence of a man who had everything supremely under command. In one deft movement, he plucked a telegraph from beneath a pile of documents.

‘All that this told me,’ he said, ‘was that you were coming to Manchester and that you needed to speak to Adnam. Could I have some more detail, Robert?’

‘How much do you already know?’

‘I read the London newspapers, so I know about the death of Constable Peebles. Such a pity – I liked him on sight.’ He smiled at Leeming. ‘I was a little more wary of you, Sergeant.’

‘I sometimes have that effect on people,’ said Leeming.

‘No offence intended.’

‘None is taken, Inspector. My face never wins friends.’

‘It does when people get to know you, Victor,’ said Colbeck, patting his shoulder. ‘But let me fill in the gaps in Zachary’s knowledge of the case. A lot has happened in the last few days.’

Amplifying the details given in the press, Colbeck told him about the flight of Oxley and Irene, the arrest of the two suspects and the abundance of information that had come in, enabling them to place the suspects at various hotels at specific times. Boone agreed that the fugitives might well consider emigration as their only viable option.

I think you’re right, Robert,’ he said. ‘If she’s about to shake the dust of this country off her shoes, Irene Adnam is very likely to pay a last visit to her father.’

‘There’s a big difference this time,’ noted Colbeck.

‘Is there?’

‘Yes, Zachary – her father knows the truth about her. When she kept supplying him with money, he was happy to believe the fiction that she worked as a governess. After all, he could take some credit for having got her the education that qualified her to take on such a post. Teaching the sons and daughters of the wealthy would seem to be a worthy occupation to someone who’d sunk as low as he has.’

‘If his daughter did go to see him,’ said Leeming, ‘how do you think Mr Adnam would react?’

‘I think he’d condemn what she did. Any father would.’

‘That would take her by surprise. Irene Adnam had no idea that you’d visited her father and laid the whole facts before him. She’d be expecting to be able to wear the same mask as before.’

Colbeck nodded. ‘That’s a good point, Victor.’

‘If he started yelling at her, she’d be very upset. Her first thought would be that he might even report her to the police.’

‘I don’t think he’d do that somehow.’

‘It’s a possibility she’d have to consider, sir,’ said Leeming, as he tried to imagine the confrontation between father and daughter. ‘If he did threaten to turn her in, what would she do?’

‘Get away from there as fast as she could,’ answered Boone.

‘That wouldn’t solve the problem. She’d have every policeman in Manchester looking for her. I’m wondering if she acted on impulse.’

Boone sniffed. ‘She’d never kill her own father, would she?’

‘We know that she’s capable of murder. If she was desperate, there’s no telling what she might do.’

‘I think it’s unlikely that she’d resort to violence,’ said Colbeck, mulling it over. ‘In her own way, she still loves her father. Otherwise, she’d have disowned him years ago. Anyway, why else bid him farewell unless she had a parting gift for him? If he decided to report her to the police, he wouldn’t get anything. That’s what it may come down to in the end,’ he concluded. ‘What price will he put on his silence?’

* * *

Two whole days and nights apart from Oxley had left Irene in a state of agitation. They’d arranged to meet